


Paris, 1936

by PudentillaMcMoany



Series: Like a Gambler's Lucky Streak [1]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Paris, Angst, Drunk Sex, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 00:29:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6930634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PudentillaMcMoany/pseuds/PudentillaMcMoany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Childermass and Segundus narrowly escape hanging for sodomy. They find themselves in a Paris without magic, in 1936.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Segundus has been drunk for three days.

There must surely have been moments when was not drunk. He does not think, for example, that he was drunk while not-sleeping in bed, all those too-long hours. Or this morning, for breakfast. But most of the time, in the last few days, he must have been drunk.

Wine sloshes on the walls of the glass as he turns it around in his hand, looks at it through the sunlight. It’s three o’ clock, and he is taking a bath. He has been drunk- on and off, but most of the time- for three days.

He lights up a cigarette, propping a feet out of the too-hot water, droplets falling on the pristine marble floor. He would have been sorry for this, once; for the people who have to clean afterwards. He would have been careful. But then, he supposes, neatness may not be required when you have been drunk for three days.

The first time he had set foot in Paris it had been 1778, a detour while _en route_ to Italy with his family.

The second time was in 1936.

He remembers being out of his mind with terror. He remembers the distinct feeling of people- magic people that is, following them on the King’s Roads, a spell recited like a prayer; and a door appearing from nowhere. Suddenly they were in Paris, in 1936, and magic was lost.

He remembers the feeling of it, draining away from him as if in a whirlwind, the passage from being a magician to being absolutely nothing. How he had held onto Childermass then, in relief and in mourning!

He had not known what to do (what to do when you bargain magic- your life!- for your life?), but Childermass had.

Or maybe he had not. With the sharpness of drunk people, Segundus thinks that in those first moments Childermass must have felt as lost as if felt. That he had only been strong, and assured, for his sake. It is a disconcerting thought. It always makes him feel inadequate, this depth of Childermass’s love, as if he is lacking something. How can he ever be equal to the task, he thinks bitterly. How can he be worthy. He is small and ordinary, and Childermass is boundless.

He takes another sip of wine, transparent white glinting gold in the sun from the window. It makes his head lighter, so he dips underwater, hands held high as in surrender, one holding the glass of wine, the other his cigarette.

 

Segundus had cried when they had sold their clothes, to a shop that sold costumes for theater. They had exchanged what gold they had with banknotes, sold their pocket watches to an  antiquarian. “If we are careful, we can go on for months until we find a job”, had said Childermass, who that morning had informed himself about the prices of lodgings with the fishmonger. His people, not Segundus’s. Segundus had just watched, their small treasure hidden in the pockets of his too-big coat. They had bought other clothes to fit these new times; jumpers, shirts, shoes that hurt their feet. They had cut their hair.

Their first day had been somber and sober. They had taken lodgings in a small, not-too-dingy hotel in Rue XXX, and Childermass had seen them around with his terrible French and his good sense of direction.

 

On their second day in Paris (this-Paris, that is, which is different from the-other-Paris), Segundus had cried for the first time. He had not been able to sleep  the night before- he had not been able to embrace Childermass in comfort nor had he let him make love to him, going stiff in Childermass’s arms whenever he held him, mouth shutting under his kisses.

It was not that he had not wanted Childermass: he ached for him. But his body did not- or rather his mind.

And so it had been that sorrow and fatigue had broken him, and he had started crying at breakfast, big gulping sobs like a children’s, and he had smashed a porcelain cup (it had not been his fault, a jerk of his arm; tea had soaked his jumper at the elbow).

“I’m sorry,” had said Childermass, circling around the small table. He had looked at Segundus with circumspect eyes, and with careful hands he taken Segundus’s face in his hands, ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he had repeated, his mouth a self-deprecating line. Segundus had wanted to kiss it. He had not.

 

The day after Segundus had cried again, this time in the small shower, unable to make the hot water run. Childermass had gone into the bathroom, enveloped him in a towel, into his arms. Sitting on the bed he had patted his hair dry, patiently, devotedly, and Segundus had held the towel around his body the whole time, angry at himself for being so rigid under Childermass’s hands. He had only let himself be naked when Childermass had gone to take a shower himself.

 

All of the three days they had gone out seeking jobs, never finding them. There had been always something, about their appearance, making potential employers uncomfortable. “It is my face. I am not respectable,” had joked Childermass, but Segundus had known that it was not that; it was something in the way that they talked which put off the people around them. It was something in their mismatched clothes, ill-fitting on their bodies of the past, too small and thin. It was something in their expression, the air of having lost something. He supposes, made philosophical by the wine, that people don’t want to have a sorrow so great rubbed in their faces. Or a love so great.

 

The day after it had been cold. They had been half-asleep on the bed, the rain pit-pattering on the windows, not touching. Childermass had put down his book, looked up at Segundus. He had taken his hand, scooted closer. Segundus had felt his body stiffen immediately, had pushed Childermass away from him.

“Enough,” had said Childermass; angry, but not at Segundus. “Let us go out.”

They had walked to the Louvre in the rain. Soaking wet they had walked down long corridors of things, older than they were and newer than they were, history all jumbling up in Segundus’s mind. They had calculated their new dates of birth, counted how much they had missed. “So many Napoleons,” had said Segundus. Childermass had laughed, touching him gently on the arm. Segundus had liked the firm warmth of his hand, and his lingering smile. Afterwards they had walked along the Seine in the pink hue of the sunset, and they had sat at a café smoking cigarette after cigarette, drinking glass of wine after glass of wine. Hazy from the drink Segundus had laughed at something that Childermass had said, the sound strange in his ears. When Childermass had smiled at him Segundus had felt his eyes on his own lips. How he had wanted him then, a relief, really, feeling his whole being begging for the comfort of Childermass, _feeling_. He emembers thinking, _maybe later I will let him hold me_. But when Childermass had tried to kiss him, later that night, against a wall on the banks of the river, he had not let him.

 

The day after they had moved to the Grand Hotel XXX, in Avenue XXX. The concierge had looked perplexed at their patched-up clothes, at Childermass’s unshaven face. They had told him they were writers from England, with the assurance of people who had shared a bottle of Bordeaux over lunch. They had booked a suite with two bedrooms, had paid in advance. It had been enough.

For dinner they had eaten mussels with their hands, soaking bread in the tangy, sea-salty broth, spilling wine on themselves.

Afterwards they had gone to the cinema for the first time. Segundus had cried again, this time in awe, when he had seen the people on the screen walking and arguing, drinking and kissing, silver-skinned and alive; Childermass had laughed his laugh like a low bark, translated the film in murmurs against Segundus’s ear, slipping in drunken broad Yorkshire. Segundus had held his hand as he followed with rapt eyes the story of Natasha and Pepél, as he fell in love with Jean Gabin (tall, coarse-faced and big-eyed; his type). They had walked back to their hotel a bit starstruck. That night they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

 

The day after, Childermass had gone out early, “for errands”. He had come back with a gramophone and a Fred Astaire record. It had looked so heavy, so big against his thin frame; he looked so much smaller in this new clothes, so much younger where previously he had been ancient.

Segundus had not known what a gramophone was, nor a record. He had not known who Fred Astaire was either, but when Childermass had shown him how to play music it had felt like a miracle- like magic, and he feels now that Fred Astaire and him are friends of sorts after all.

With the song playing around them, Segundus had put his arms around Childermass’s neck, not quite like a dance, and kissed his mouth. Childermass had looked at him with eyes so black that he had felt almost queasy.

They had spent the day in the public library nearby, trying to make sense of what had happened to the world between 1818 and 1936. Afterwards, outside a bar, they had drunk Porto with an old man who had told them about the War. How different it had sounded from the books, this modern warfare! How much fouler, and dirtier, and scarier. In bed, Segundus had nursed a glass of whiskey until Childermass had told him “It’s late,” and had kissed him on the cheek. He had laid awake all night, thinking of trenches, with his hands in John’s hair.

 

That had been the night before. Now, Segundus hears steps outside the door, the key jangling and turning in the lock, feels the presence of Childermass. He would have felt his magic before; he misses it, how it was, like a comforting shroud above them. But he feels Childermass now too, even though it is different, even though it is just the way that he walks, and the thread of his shoes, and the smells of his cigarettes. The heart knows, he muses, stubbing his cigarette on a plate sticky with jam.

Childermass arrives bearing a bottle. “Have you ever drank champagne,” he asks.

“We will have no money by the end of the week if we go on like this.”

“Let it be. You were miserable. You are not miserable anymore.”

Segundus ponders it for a while; he is surprised of finding it true.

“Besides,” says Childermass, crouching, joints popping, on the floor next to the bath. “I have talked with a waiter today, bloody uptight man. He told me they are looking for a kitchen porter.”

“What is a kitchen porter?”

“Let us talk about it later. When we have not been drinking.”

“You have been drinking too?”

“Mmh. In the kitchen.”

“Whom with?”

But Childermass does not reply. His people again, thinks Segundus, with a note of jealousy. He supposes that there is a familiarity beyond time, and wonders where his people are. When Childermass kisses his forehead, he almost starts.

“I am sorry,” says Childermass. “I should-”

“No. No, I was- it is alright,” says Segundus. He smiles too, although it seems unconvincing. It convinces himself, though, he feels it; he really does not mind Childermass kissing him.

Childermass takes off his jacket, drops it on the floor. He rolls the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, carefully dipping a hand in the water to make it ripple. He cups it in his palm to pour it on Segundus’s chest, his head, his neck; even though Childermass is not touching him, it feels like a caress a sort. And so Segundus caresses him too, in this strange aquarian way: he lets small drops fall from his fingers on Childermass’s face, down his nose, on his cheeks. He lets the water rivulet delicate streams on his arm, makes it so that it pools in the crook of his elbow. Childermass looks at him all the time, almost in fear.

Eventually, Segundus wants to touch him, for real. And so he does. Tentatively at first, with the back of his hand on his cheekbone, under his chin, on the side of his neck, leaving wet traces as imprints. He follows the rivers on Childermass’s arm, insinuates his fingers under the turned-up sleeves of his shirt. Childermass trembles, almost imperceptibly.

“I am going to open the champagne,” he says, self-mocking as he says _champagne_. Segundus likes that about him; he smiles, and this time it is more convincing. Childermass smiles back. He pops the bottle open with unexpected ease, looks around him for glasses.

“I couldn’t find any,” says Segundus. “Only this one.” He shows him the half-full glass still in his hand. He feels a bit ridiculous, so he drops it on the floor, wine sloshing on the marble.

“We shall have to drink from the bottle, then,” says Childermass, taking a swig in demonstration, and then holds out the bottle to Segundus.

It feels like small metal pearls rolling pleasantly in his mouth. It feels like liquid gold, pouring down his throat (although more like slivers of gold, and not like molten gold. Who was it that had died like that, in ancient Rome). He takes a long sip, his eyes tearing up. Childermass is staring at him, so he puts down the bottle, looks at him. “Come here,” says Segundus. Liquid courage indeed.

Childermass hesitates. “In the bath?”

His voice is a garbled slur, gravelly and lovely; naked. Segundus feels painfully in love. “Come here,” he repeats, and almost slips as he gets up on his knees in the bathtub, so that he is facing Childermass. “Unless you do not-” he adds, secretly wounded.

“I do,” says Childermass. Segundus sighs. He beckons him closer, presses wet palms on his shirt. He feels him shake slightly under his hands. Fingers hooked under his suspenders, he slowly slips them off Childermass’s narrow shoulders, nuzzles his neck.

Childermass is already unbuttoning his shirt when Segundus, with a huff of desperation, yanks it out of his trousers and up his head, tossing it on the floor. He kisses him on the mouth, deliberate and slow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry, this is a bit sappy. Smut in the next (sappier) chapter, woot woot!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Childermass plots, and then plots some more, and then shatters.

When Childermass had first fallen in love with John Segundus, it had been his generosity he had fallen for.

Segundus had been free- which is a queer way to describe a man so attentive to propriety, so well-behaved. But he had been free with expressing his insecurity, and free with expressing his displeasure, and free, after Childermass had at long last bedded him, with expressing his pleasure.

It is not necessarily that John Segundus always means to show so much. It is just that his face, his body, always show what he wants, what he feels, almost a queer an endearing consequence of his having gone through life largely unscathed by great sorrows, or great joys.

So when they arrive in Paris, and they lose magic, and Segundus will not have him anymore, Childermass sees it immediately. He sees, plain on Segundus’s face, that he does not want to touch him, out of fear or out of, even, disgust, and Childermass is terrified (the first time Segundus does not let himself be kissed he has to excuse himself to the bathroom of their small room, where he retches).

He is, however, a man of action, and so, determined that he cannot lose Segundus, he does not let himself give in to despair, and does what he does best, which is, he plots.

He talks to people in bad French, making useful connections. He learns the city and the citizens, and when he is satisfied, he sets to the task of learning Segundus, that is, Segundus-in-Paris. Childermass studies the sorrow etched in new lines around his eyes, and the grey hair at his temples. He wants, all the time, to kiss away the sorrow from his eyelids, and then stroke the grey hair, in a selfish need to register all the minuscule ways in which they are different (in colour and texture) from Segundus’s brown hair. He wants to make a list of all the different ways in which he has changed Segundus, for better or for worse. He wants to touch him, most of all. He aches.

He lets the time pass. He tells himself, John will come to himself. But Segundus does not. And so Childermass plots some more, and ultimately he brings him to the Louvre, and gets him drunk, and feeds him foods they never tasted and songs they’ve never heard, and Segundus, little by little, starts to be himself again, which does not mean that he forgets the sorrow, the pain that left indelible signs on him, but means that he is curious again, that he studies books in the library and smiles, rapt, as he watches a film, and sings out of tune _and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak_ when he thinks he is alone in their room.

Childermass would love to embrace him then, or to kiss him (he would love to stroke him until he comes, in his new modern clothes, just to see if it is any different from the way he came before, in their time). He does not. He takes everything that Segundus gives him, though, that he does, eagerly and a little bit selfishly. He needs this man, this lovely woundable scholar, to survive these new times (and: to survive).

So when Segundus kisses him, finally (not a mere brush of lips, like when Childermass gave him the gramophone, but _a kiss_ ), wetly and slowly, as if to say, _I’m here_ , and, _welcome back_ , Childermass, who is tipsy, almost cries, and definitely shakes, throwing his arms awkwardly around Segundus’s waist as Segundus tries to undress him.

He climbs into the bathtub gracelessly, sits in front of Segundus, and there; they are naked together for the first time in more than one century. Legs entwined, their chests almost touch; it would be easy to hold each other now, and Childermass craves the safety of Segundus’s arms, but he finds himself afraid to ask. He finds that he would not know how to cope with rejection, which is an open, tremulous feeling in his chest.

Segundus is circumspect too, but Childermass sees, plain in his straight brave shoulders, resolve. He touches Childermass’s face, as if to learn it anew, eyes a bit unfocused.

“What you looking at,” asks Childermass. It is difficult to talk as Segundus takes his hands in his (fingers a bit wrinkled). It feels as if each word has jagged ends against his throat.

Segundus does not reply, but lays his eyes on him with a thoughtful expression. He takes his hand and then kisses his fingertips, holding his gaze as if it is a feat of courage (and it does feel, to Childermass, like a feat of courage). He moves closer, clumsily in the confined space of the bathtub, plants a kiss on Childermass’s cheek.

“I like this new hair,” he says, endearingly solemn. “You should grow a moustache.”

Childermass laughs, with Segundus’s fingers running through his hair sending tiny shocking bolts down his spine. He feels endlessly grateful then; oh, he wants to throw himself at his feet. He wants to burrow in his chest, in the refuge of his heart, he wants- he whimpers, hopeless, like a sob, takes a deep breath.

“Then you should too. Can you even grow one?” He teases.

Segundus mercifully ignores his trembling voice (he looks like a small drunk king with the light from the window haloing his head).

“I do not know.” He shakes his head. “I do not know, we shall try,” he says, and takes Childermass’s face in his hands. “Let me wash your hair.”

Which means that Segundus fumbles a little bit, cupping water in his hands and splashing it over Childermass’s hair and on his face while Childermass leans in his touch, touches his nose to Segundus’s wrist, making him huff a little frustrated nose, snort with laughter ungraceful and perfect. In the end Segundus picks up the tumbled glass from besides the bathtub, drinks whatever little wine it still holds and plunges it in the water, using it as a vessel of sorts to pour it on Childermass’s head.

When Childermass’s hair is dripping wet Segundus smiles, self-satisfied; picks up the champagne bottle from the floor. He takes a sip of it, and Childermass watches in rapture the way that the wine spills on his chin, on his neck, pools at the well between his clavicles.

 

Eventually, and inevitably, they are kissing, glass forgotten at the bottom of the bathtub. Childermass has to fish it and drop it on the floor again before they break it, but he does not stop kissing Segundus, his mouth and his brow and Segundus’s arms which are wound around his neck ( _as they should_ ). Segundus’s jaw is slightly sticky, sweet with champagne, and when Childermass licks a trail on it, and then on Segundus’s neck and his chest, Segundus moans unrestrained (beautiful and close and drunk). His erection bobs against Childermass’s stomach as he crawls astride him, holding his head in his hands, slipping a little bit so that Childermass has to put fervent, stilling hands on his waist.

He does not know what to do.

That is he knows what to do, which is: to touch, but he is not sure if he can, if he is allowed, so he hesitates, and it is Segundus, eventually, who cants his hips against his body, who ruts against him with the water lapping at his waist, Childermass seeing and not seeing his cock, feeling and not feeling it against him in the strange watery friction that amplifies and muffles at the same time.

“John,” prays Childermass, looking above him.

“To bed.”

 

Lying  on the green counterpane, green-eyed and wet, Segundus looks like a water-creature, beautiful and strange, his skin cold and a little bit shivering, skin prickling from kisses and cold. It feels a bit like making love underwater, the light filtering in through the drapes at the window in aquamarine hues, and Childermass’s head swimming and light, his breath choking against his lips.

Segundus has his legs wound around him, arms above his head as in surrender, clutching, long-fingered, at his own wrists. His neck is exposed and inviting, and so Childermass bites at it, at the dip where it joins Segundus’s freckled shoulder, and Segundus whimpers as Childermass leaves a sign, red and immediately swelling on his delicate skin.

Childermass does not know this drunk Segundus, and so he explores him methodically, the sounds that he makes when Childermass licks at his nipple, or bites at the skin under his bicep (taste almost milky in his mouth after all that time in the water). He marvels at the entrancing way in which his eyes open and close, at his slightly debauched clutching of fingers in his own hair as Childermass slides down his body; at his curses (Childermass has never heard Segundus curse in his life) when Childermass hikes up his hips and grips  at his buttocks to lick at his hole, to prod inside it and feel Segundus unspooling, a little deranged, murmuring the most delightful things like: “That’s it- there, _oh_ , please,” or: “My love,” which he has never called Childermass before, because it is known that it is Childermass who does the declaring between the two of them, Childermass who calls Segundus _love_ , and Segundus who receives, graceful like a sovereign, Childermass’s utterances of devotion; the reason for this being that it would absolutely _break_ Childermass otherwise, and it does, in fact, break him now, so that he has to crawl up Segundus’s body, pull up Segundus’s legs so that they're hooked on his shoulders, and then fuck him with his fingers until Segundus _begs_ him to put his cock in him already, and finally, _finally_ , when Childermass is sinking into him, slow and relentless, he feels himself sobbing, which he does not care a whit about, not now, with Segundus unwiring under him, gripping at his neck with fumbling fingers as he says “John,” and, “Love of my life,” with his mouth slackened and red, with his eyes open and a little bit wild, red-rimmed from having drank too much and from the salt-water (no; not the salt-water, he’s wrong it’s bath-water).

Childermass feels unfocused. He moves into Segundus slowly, pulls away from him entirely and then back in, until his cock is completely buried into him, and then away again, which is excruciating, exhausting, elating, this opening and closing of Segundus, the way his eyes flutter open at each push, the way that he calls his name and it sounds almost lewd in his mouth, infuriating. Childermass wants and not wants to be inside him, which will imply this to end. He feels the same need for closeness of the first moment he pushed into Segundus, he seeks to replicate it and inevitably fails, oh, but he is in love, he is so in love, and this is wrong, the place, the time, and how do you fix the unfixable without magic, how are you ever _sure_ about anything.

“John.” Segundus cups gentle fingers around his cheek, stills him (like magic, the azure wave of relief). “Do not,” he murmurs, extricating himself from Childermass carefully, rolling them over on their sides, holding him. “Here,” he says, kissing his mouth, tasting like sweet wine and water. “Do not think of it, please.” He runs his fingers down Childermass’s spine in soothing circles, like ripples of want, and Childermass kisses him (wetly) in a desperate surge, Segundus moaning sweetly in his mouth, rolling his hips just so, and then he is on top of Childermass,  hands in his hair, pinning him down, and then: arms sliding around him in comfort as he presses kisses on his chest, his shoulder, his arm.  “I am sorry my love,” says Segundus in his ear, lips light like a kiss.

“Don’t.”

“Be sorry or call you love?” Asks Segundus, laughing- but Childermass feels his voice falter in fear.

“Both. You do not need to.”

“I cannot help it.”

“Because you’re trapped with me.”

“I would have died for you.”

“It would have been my fault.”

“I would have died for you _gladly_.”

“Do not say such things,” begs Childermass, touching Segundus’s face and his neck, caressing his shoulders shattered and relieved.

“Then do not be unreasonable.”

Segundus, who had been propped on his elbows, lowers himself down to embrace him, resolute and final. Childermass holds onto him like a lifeline.

 

Eventually (inevitably), they are kissing again.

It is tentative at first, a peck of mouth, a brush of dry lips on lips, urgent and sweet, like a caress. But then Segundus licks Childermass’s lips, as if asking for permission, and Childermass opens his mouth to him, craning his neck so that Segundus can kiss him more deeply, tongue dragging on tongue, a bit filthy, and then inside his mouth, grazing his teeth (which Childermass would swear he can almost feel). It is maddening, how helplessly he whimpers into Segundus’s mouth, how much he needs him- not only that, but how much he is willing to bare himself to John Segundus, to beg John Segundus, not only with words, but with the way that his hands grasp his neck to pull him closer to him, in the way that he asks, please, and Segundus, who is miraculous and can do magic even without magic, pushes two long delicate fingers between their kissing mouths so that they drag against Childermass’s tongue even as Segundus is kissing him, and when they’re slick with spit he drags them across Childermass’s body and Childermass is bucking his hips already, moaning already as Segundus eases a finger inside him, and Childermass rocks himself against it, gripping Segundus’s wrist so that he stays there, exactly where Childermass needs him, and then. Segundus is above him, mouth hovering over his, breath shallow and tantalising, smiling mischievously as Childermass gasps (and gasping as Childermass raises his head, just a little, so that he can lick at the corner of Segundus’s mouth, drag his tongue on the rim of his lower lip as Segundus puts another finger inside him, his palm torturously grazing his balls).

Childermass is murmuring Segundus’s name fervently (as if the name itself were a lifeline), and Segundus looks at him in a certain way, with his eyelashes casting uncertain, tremulous shadows on his cheekbones that make Childermass sob, and he pulls his fingers out of Childermass, hooks Childermass’s legs on his hips- Childermass feeling curiously boneless, or wrecked (or; shipwrecked. _Flotsam_ , he thinks, suddenly and inexplicably). Segundus makes a small babbling sound of pleasure when he enters Childermass, and Childermass hears himself echoing it as Segundus moves into him in small shallow pushes, and then deeper pushes; and when Segundus grips his cock, stroking it in time with his thrusts, Childermass makes a strangled, pathetic sound, Segundus’s cock inside him the only thing he sees- he feels clearly, tethering him to this place, to this man (not like flotsam, after all, then: like lagan).

In the end, it is Segundus saying his name that undoes him, Segundus’s mouth on his collarbone, the feeling of Segundus’s hair at the nape of his neck, still tenderly wet under his fingers.

He comes on Segundus’s hand and on his own chest, heaving in deep gasps, the light behind his eyelids mingling with the glint of the sun. Segundus pounds into him again and again, fingers pushing into his thighs. He bends Childermass’s legs just so; so he can push harder, as he likes it, so that he can kiss him on the mouth as he comes with a shudder and a moan.

 

Afterwards, they are silent. Childermass lowers his legs on the mattress, registers the dull ache of his joints, careful; the last waves of his orgasm ripple in him, making him hazy. Above him Segundus looks lovely and flustered, his chest spotted in red, hair jutting in every direction. He lets himself fall on the mattress next to Childermass, chuckles to himself, laying on his side with his head propped on a hand, skin covered in marks from Childermass.

“What are you laughing at.”

“We are too old for this, Mr Childermass. I feel a bit shattered.”

“Likewise, Mr Segundus,” laughs Childermass, and feels it; happiness like a tingle in his ears.

They look at each other. They smile.

“I love you,” says Segundus, laying his head on the pillow, almost casually.

It is annihilating, the sudden metallic taste of panic in Childermass’s mouth.

“And look what good it’s done you,” he says.

“John.”

Segundus reaches out, his hand steady on Childermass’s neck. Childermass gasps a breath, and it scorches his throat (he almost drowned once; the salt water felt the same in his lungs).

“It’s not your fault,” says Segundus, calmly.

“You almost died.”

“You almost did too.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I do. I love you. But we are here, now. We’re safe.”

“We have no magic.”

“We have champagne,” smiles Segundus, as he runs his knuckles on Childermass’s side, comforting and almost hypnotic. Childermass hides his face in the crook of his neck, and rests there, the scent of Segundus’s skin as reassuring as his touch. “We are going to be happy. Trust me, John Childermass.”

And he trusts him. Of course that he does, he would follow this man into battle, he would lay his life in his hands to do as he pleases (has already done so, in fact). He dozes off with Segundus’s name on his lips, _John_ , _beloved_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always cheat a bit with the description of Segundus and his eyes are always green and always Ed Hogg's. The man is too pretty.


End file.
